In (semi) defense of a flawed yet still enjoyable game.
That's one big problem with the Suikoden series, whenever something new is attempted, it just feels underdeveloped. As in Suikoden 3, although the Trinity Sight System was a nice idea (even if a bit cliche) it just wasn't as fleshed out as much as it should have been. The idea of the creators was to give some fans what they'd wanted, a female lead character, but in this regard they also added two others, which kind of ruined the idea of a simply silent hero female lead... Geddoe's story was interesting though.
Anyway, Suikoden 4 is a little too much like the original in some ways. First off, they got the same artist, who by my personal taste, doesn't exactly flesh out the characters as much they probably should be fleshed out; so the characters tend to be bland looking. There were also some characters and other plot elements which were obviously directly borrowed from Suikoden I. They even went as far as to make the main character run like the hero did in I when equipped with a Holy rune. I found this a somewhat funny (yet fairly bad) inside joke for big fans of the first and the creators.
Now these new additions, namely boat travel and naval battles are attrocious. I was hoping before the release they'd get some odd kind of mechanic like Windwaker for boat travel, but in the end, they left it as your means of travel... and very slow travel at that. Not to mention random battles are very annoying. Waiting to get Viki to teleport will probably be the biggest relief you discover...
...and naval battles are particularly uninspired. Like a lot of the past battle systems it's basically rock paper scissors with rune types. The battles are entirely too easy... if you can't take them down with the cannons simply board their ships and take them out the easy way. Although somewhat fun, naval battles were far too simple and hardly memorable.
Not to mention, this game is SHORT. Gosh, I felt like Suikoden 3 was too short. Just like Suikoden 3, the game seems to just abruptly end. you think, no, this couldn't be the end, but it is. I was hoping Konami would have attempted to satiate this problem with 4, but apparently it will take 5 to do this.
I prefer the story and characters to 3, basically because the "light skirmish" was merely begun by Luc, while the "light skirmish" in 4 was actually begun by corrupt military leaders... as Suikoden should be.
Also Suikoden 4 has a new game + feature which was nice.
Anyway, Suikoden 4 is my prefered game over 3, although neither even touches the two beforehand. In the end, Suikoden 4 merely beats out 3 by a bit only because of its relation to 1... and of course, Ted.
Oh and by the way, people who denounce 4 simply because of the hero's "bowlcut," probably never gave the game a chance in the first place.